The Representation Of Group Identity Through Phonological Variation In Banyumas Dialect Of Javanese Spoken By Himalaya Community

This study is aimed to investigate the phonological variation of Banyumas dialect, especially on suprasegmental level which includes stress, tone, and intonation features. It is also aimed to indicate the use of it as group identity by the members of Himalaya community. This study used the theory of Peter Roach (2000) and Joanna Thornborrow (1999). The approach of this study is descriptive qualitative. There are two kinds of data on this study, the first one is field notes and interview result, while the second data is questionnaire result from Himalaya member which indicate the use of Banyumas dialect as group identity. The instruments are observation, interview, and questionnaire. The researcher used judgment sampling to select the participants by adapting the criteria of NORMs by Chambers and Trudgill (1998). The data collections are: taking notes, doing interview and recording it, and giving questionnaire. In order to analyze the data the researcher transcribed and interpreted the data based on the theory to get the conclusion. The researcher found that the phonological variation of Banyumas dialect is unique compared to standard Javanese because of its stressed syllable, tone, and intonation. This dialect tends to give more stress at some parts of utterance such as on the address terms of the utterance, the object of the utterance (noun), and at the end of the utterance. It is used to insist the main point of the utterance. This variation influences its intonation to have the pattern of high-low-high tone within an utterance. However, most speakers use louder sound and higher tone which makes it sounds loud and rude compare to standard Javanese. Because of this uniqueness, Himalaya member as its native speaker tend to have strong identity inside the community and average identity outside the community. In conclusion, the characteristics of this dialect influence Himalaya member to have stronger in-group identity rather than out-group identity in reflecting themselves as Himalaya member and the native speakers of Banyumas dialect